OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Out of interest how many people on this forum are a member of an organised club or league that's affiliated to their National Association and how many are what commonly referred to as "basement" or "social" players?

If you hear yourself described as a "basement", "social" or "grass roots" player do you feel like it's an insult?

In the UK, there is an organisation which is separate to the English Table Tennis Association - it's called the English Ping Pong Association - and it seems to cater bother for what is commonly called "basement" or social players and others who may want to play using "old" rules such as 21 up. It's website is http://www.pingpongengland.co.uk/ and it shows what can be set up "seperate" to a national association.

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A very good question, and I'd be interested to know as well.

Should there be a catagory for members that used to be a member of a club, but are now social players or currently don't play club competition?

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No I don't think so as this is like a balance sheet - just a snap shot of the position as it is now. Once the information is known it may be possible to analyse it and break it down further but to do that now could distract from the original question and would be to go off at a tangent. For example issues of "why" people are no longer members of clubs would come up and that is a question deserving of it's own thread.

Let's see what the basic response is first and then take it from there?

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Yes I see you point and I agree

Although I play for a club currently, I did have a few years off for a while, and although I wasn't playing competition, I did play socially and did practice, so I tended to still 'feel' like a club player.

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I belong to the San Diego Table Tennis Club, so did several more members in the forum.

I don't do tournaments, not even the Thursday night round robins; hate being disturbed every other ball.

Since 2010, member of LSS TTC and active Korean Amature player in club, as well as local tourneys. Also member of Daum TTA which has weekly meetups that split the members balanced onto teams and do a handicap team round robin. Founding member (with an ITTF Umpire) and president of Korean Foreign TTC, which although is a USATT sanctioned club, we have mainly been an association of foreign TT players who reside semi-permanantly in Korea, but sometimes add foreigners passing through Korea to our team in team events in some tourneys.

How do I feel about being called a social player? Although I play doubles as a "social" thing in our club, I actually like doubles and do not like being called a social player.

How do I feel about being called a "basement" player? Not good. Although some of the TT clubs in Seoul I visit are in basements, by no means are they "basement" clubs.

How do I feel about being called a "Grassroots" player? I like that term. I think I am in that mix. Grassroot does not mean un-skilled or a non-competetor by any measure. Grassroot is at the base of a movement and is where the popular ideology and large numbers are at. Grassroots people are ones who get things done and through numbers add the pressure to further something. Grassroots is all about relating to the common level. Without grassroots support, no movement can really gain traction and move forward much. maybe a government can mandate something that many do, and after a while, if many like it, there is a grass-roots.

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The atrocious system here in Indonesia makes me wonder whether my club or ANY club is actually connected to the national TT association
Prolly I should ask my club organizer..

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I am sure that every German here is a member of a club. There are over 10,000 clubs in Germany, this is equal to 1 club for every 8,000 population on average. You do not need to be a "basement" player, because you can always find a club in the neighbourhood.

This is possible, because the clubs can use the schools gyms.

This is also a proof, that popularity of TT has nothing to do with rule changes, but in the first place with the access to school gyms. I can not believe, that the ITTF don not know that.

I'd definitely say I play table tennis, rather than ping pong. I'm a former England Junior top 5 ranked, who played in local league, national league/tournaments and a few internationals. Fast forward 12 or so years (I met a girl, married, had a baby, etc, and didn't play any TT), and I'm playing again in a local ETTA-regulated league for one of the TTCs (different county - I moved.)

But the important difference now is that I play purely for enjoyment of the sport. For 'fun', you might call it. I don't care about rankings and so on, but I do care about the camaraderie and collegiality at our club. I do very much care about the beers we share after a match night.

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Making it easy to find facilities is exactly what the USATT should be doing. On our own it was very hard to line up a suitable facility to get our club started. Took over a year.

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Correckt. Not only do some clubs use a school gym, that school gym is available for use at a very reasonable hour.

For example, when i lived in my adopted hometown in a German city of 1/4 million population, my wife was the co-owner/manager of an art gallery. At the time, I was not a TT player, but little did I know, not even 100 meters from the gallery I went to nearly every day, there was an elementary school that hosted a top-rate club. Here are the training hours.

http://tischtennis.eintracht-wiesbaden.de/training/

here is a link to a webpage that shows the major clubs in hte surrounding area. Most, if not all these areas, although not in the city proper, are very close to the city and should be considered a part of the city, even if their villiage has its own name and identity. Note that well over 1/2 of htese clubs use a school.

http://www.sporton.de/CMS/users/templates/template.asp?user_id=229162&page_id=36183

It is not possible to use a school to train and play if the school kids are using the gym for something else. In USA, we have mostly basketball and volleyball that take up the gym after school, so training at 6 PM (1800) Monday - Friday is practically impossible to do at most schools in USA, even elementary schools have their gyms booked up a lot during the week.

Although I am not a German expert or German citizen, I would confidently say teh popularity of TT in Germany is helped GREATLY by the sport culture in general, funding for the state for schools, LARGE exposure in both school and TV to the sport (it is HUGE in Germany), sucessful world class athletes, a STRONG organized league structure for ALL levels from novice to super-pro, and of course it is SO EASY to get to a club, you could airdrop yourself in any German city and literally WALK to a club within 15 minutes in many cities.

it is unreasonable to expect a national or international organization to do everything for you, but the national associations that talk to schools, convince them to have programs, have clubs in schools, organize leagues, promote a positive image of TT, the national associations that FOSTER this usually have a lot of TT players at all levels with a strong participation base and many grass-roots elements and support.

In USA, this is non-existant, but is slowly developing and happening on its own (from grass-roots peoples and clubs) WITHOUT promotion or advertising or the USATT president calling up every school to try to get a program.

If I was USATT president and I had no budget, I would get together with some marketing and venture capitalist types to form a good promotion campaign and message, along with cost/benefit analysis, then work on personally contacting EVERY school in USA. Email is free (after internet bill of $30 a month is paid). Phones are practically free if you use Skype or similar service for $10 a month. National associations that have a tiny participation base of serious beginner or above OUGHT to be trying to pound the internet to get the word out. It takes mental energy and next to zero money to do this.

Leaders of a nationa organization should be relentless in getting TT suppliers on board to help this out. If BTY, with all their marketing savvy could realize that if they are the first supplier of choice to equip schools with proper equipment to get them started, that the soccer moms of the school TT players would fall over themselves buying them BTY Timo Boll ZLC blades, Tenergies, BTY shorts and 10 different jerseys, the schools buy replacemnt equipment as well and the residual business income from a national school system and the resultant spike in TT club purchases would be litterally astounding.

I would like to fire and national TT association leader who has not used repeated maximum effort to do this.

The last USATT president who even tried to do this and hold his subordinates accountable was Danny Seemiller himself, who later got fed up with the bullcrap resistance and red tape he couldn't cut through by himself./

Grass-Roots organiztions, once they get large enough can exert a good deal of influence towards establishing a larger player base, which creates more clubs, that possible gets more schools to have programs (we now have a few Uni in USA that give scholarships for TT) that produce more athletes that produce more leagues, that produce more champions and competitors.... You see the point.

I puke every time I think of how our national association is failing as a whole to accomplish this. Yeah, there are next to zero resources, but the USATT could do a heck of a lot more in hte areas I described above. Grass-Roots movement(s) are making up for this a lot, but it is working way too slow. The number of full time clubs with their own facility that finacially survice is a good indicator as we have moved from just a few to low double digits, but the total ammount of full time clubs we have in our entire large-azz nation would not properly service a city of 250,000 if it was in Asia or Europe.

_________________
FC Bayern in the driver's seat on its way to rule Bundesliga and Europe.

BTY M. Maze Tibhar Aurus
Primorac Carbon Aurus/755 OX LP (LP Scout bat)
Nexy Calix THIN OFF with Tibhar Aurus and Dawei XP 2008 (Test Bat)

Shitloads of Tibhar and Nexy Jerseys and Shorts and Shoes!

President, Korea Foreign TTC
http://www.facebook.com/koreaforeignttc

Typically the clubs may use public school gyms after 17.00 and the schools can not say "no". The concept is that public schools do not own their gyms, they were built with taxpayers money and therefore they are entitled to use them.

"Typically the clubs may use public school gyms after 17.00 and the schools can not say "no". The concept is that public schools do not own their gyms, they were built with taxpayers money and therefore they are entitled to use them."

Smartguy, have you actually tried this?

I have been rebuffed by schools for 100 different reasons including insurence, danger to kids, no staff to open doors and close, the list is endless.

You mean to open a club and get a gym? No, I did not. But it works in Germany.

I see, in Germany.
The public pays for the schools here also but that ploy would not work.
I have offered FREE coaching at schools that have tables that are never used. I was turned down every time. Same with the Boys and Girls clubs in town.